WME Signs The Beach Boys

The iconic band is led by founding member Mike Love and longtime musician Bruce Johnston.

The Beach Boys, led by founding member Mike Love and long-time musician Bruce Johnston, has signed with WME in all areas, worldwide.

One of the most famous pop bands of all time with more than 100 million records sold, the group that now tours as the Beach Boys includes neither founding songwriter, co-lead vocalist and former band leader Brian Wilson — who now tours solo and recently headlined the Beachlife Festival in Southern California — nor founding member Al Jardine, who also tours on his own. Founding member Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998 and brother Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983.

Today, Love is the sole licensee of the “Beach Boys” name under a deal he negotiated with the band’s corporate entity, Brother Records Inc, in 1998 requiring him to pay a fee to the label, only use male vocalists and do shows that feature the band’s most popular songs. In 2012, Brother Records licensed the name to company called 50 Big Ones owned by Love, Wilson and producer Joe Thomas to use on their 50th reunion tour.

After a final London date on the 2012 tour, Love left to lead a different configuration of the band without Wilson, Marks and Jardine. The founding members have since played together, telling SiriusXM in 2018 that they had mostly resolved their disagreements.

The Beach Boys were awarded The Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, the same year Love co-wrote the group’s No. 1 hit “Kokomo.” The band plays about 150 shows per year. In November 2017, Love released a special double album through BMG titled Unleash the Love with 13 previously unreleased songs and 14 re-recordings of Beach Boys classics.